The best way to win any war is to remove the cause. That requires getting into the head of your enemy. The difficulty of doing that is knowing the difference between one's projection of the enemies desires and one's own.

For example, As I understand it, Al Queda is a violent expression of a particular Islamic sect. That is, they share values and beliefs with violence performed in Al Queda but merely expressed and praised in Wahabbism. If that's not correct, I'd appreciate expert correction.

Since the origin of both is a particular belief that God has called them to act on God's holy word through Muhammed's teachings, I doubt that a direct argument in faith would persuade either Wahabbists or Al Quedistas.

So if you cannot dissuade the sect itself, perhaps you can dissuade the pool from which recruits are drawn.

As with any religion, the most fervent practitioners are found within the class that lives and feels the injustice of their circumstances and is seeking a moral solution to their problem. So if the injustice of their circumstances were ameliorated, then the potential recruit pool would shrink.

That is a very long-term solution. It is the same problem that this country had with racism until the sixties when society finally addressed the problem head-on. We are fortunate in this country, for all our *****ing, to have a government that responds to the will of the people. The government did not turn against blacks or whites, it adjusted the social contract between the people and the government. (As an aside, one of the great things that came of the 9/11 disaster is that we were all in it together. I have never seen in my lifetime our nation draw together across so many lines taht ordinarily divide us. Please don't go off on this observation, save it for another thread.)

Since Al Queda has made this a combined social and military issue, our response must also be social and military. We must encourage and force change in the societies that create a huge gulf between the powerful and powerless. In our country, we have no clue how saturated people are in issues of class. Here, if you work your ass off and conform to the values of the group, you can get into just about any social circle in a generation or two. There are few places on Earth that are that open. In our culture its mostly a meritocracy. Sure, there are some circles that are exclusive as hell. Boston and New York are packed full of that. New Orleans has its own rarified cliques (interestingly, one is mixed-race and has great political and financial power).

Most middleastern countries are extremely closed societies with very limited opportunity for social or financial advance. That must change or we will eventually get to the point where we will have to start killing those peopel by the tens of thousands.

So at this time, we kill the leaders as we can and work hard to change the social systems of their mother countries.

Bot